Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 2 2025
It took almost two years for them to finally release this movie, so I remember very little of what happened in the first one. They catch you up, but they are also still making references to the other movies, some of which I never saw. They are being pretty nostalgic and they have said the series as we know it is basically done, but that is not what this movie tells you.
Anyway, I was still looking forward to this movie and hoped for the best. I think it definitely delivers on the main things these movies have always delivered on: big action scenes, big fights, technological wizardry, and some neat twists and turns. However it also delivers on other things the movies have always delivered on: completely unrealistic stunt setups, unrealistic technology, too many Tom Cruise glamour shots (this time lots of him fighting and swimming in his underwear sans Bob Seger music). There are so many flipped agents and I thought some of them had died, or maybe are good, or maybe not. Is anybody actually good? The setup is neat in that AI has taken over all technology which means it can show massive disinformation and the world is kind of melting down into mistrust (good, current topics). I like how certain characters have focus and I think that is stronger than having the sometimes odd looking Tom Cruise at the center. Generally he looks amazing for his age, but then sometimes kind of bloated or even CGI? Also a couple of great actors from Apple TV shows appear (Hanna Waddingham from Ted Lasso and Tramell Tillman from Severence) plus Nick Offerman as a top general and the very nice return of a minor character from the very first movie. I like that room was made for these solid, albeit small parts. Angela Bassett also has some nice scenes as a president struggling to figure out what is best for her country and he world in the face of a computer program that seems unstoppable. However more room is made for some big completely unbelievable, but still amazing, action sequences which have already been revealed in ads unfortunately. Then some stuff is just kind of trite at this point like multiple ticking atomic time bombs (really, nobody ever figures out how to just disable the clocks?) and (fortunately minimal use of) characters in masks that make them indistinguishable from the actual person. So while my eyes were rolling a lot of times and some of those big sequences went on for too long, there is a lot of great stuff here and I will still give the movie an A-, taking off some because the writing often seems to take a backseat to putting on a big show.
Written: 10 Jun 2025